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Great analysis by @ManoloMonereo of the strategic contradictions faced by Podemos. Some thoughts: https://www.cuartopoder.es/ideas/2020/07/21/podemos-una-crisis-de-proyecto/
Podemos was essentially built to fight an electoral 'war of position' on discursive terms. Though rarely acknowledged in public, this strategy comes with specific organisational requirements: a lean, hierarchical party responsive to the imperatives of media strategy
In the party's own terms, Podemos was designed to act as an 'electoral war machine' capable of 'taking heaven by storm' on the back of a left-populist offensive. Though potentially powerful, the trade-off was a centralising impulse that hollowed out the party.
Over time, local branches were effectively disbanded. Internal democracy was redefined as an online ratification exercise. Channels for dissent were suppressed, prompting high-profile desertions. Regional ties were neglected, resulting in breakdowns of alliances
With the exhaustion of the post-2011 wave of struggle, Podemos has seen its electoral chances dwindle and the Laclauian assault of the state has stalled. It is no longer worth the trade-off. Electoral results are now gradually subsiding around an old core of IU voters
The conjuncture poses a serious strategic dilemma for Podemos. There are, it seems, two main options. Option A: Leaning into the change of phase. In Gramscian terms, this is a switch from the quick-paced logic of the war of manoeuvre to the slower pace of the war of position.
This is a change of gear for which the party is currently underequipped. It requires re-building branches, expanding cadres, forging links with social movements in light of struggles to come. Yet, this is a daunting task that the leadership has been unable or unwilling to face
Instead, the party has opted for Option B: heightening its respectability as a party of state by forcing PSOE into an unlikely coalition government. This option was presumably chosen to reach a broader electorate in order to stabilise voter decline
Monereo suggests that this was also the product of a structural analysis. The leadership reached the conclusion that the Spanish state had managed to stabilise its organic crisis after the Catalan revolt, i.e. that social tensions would take a long time to flare up again
If so, this was an exaggerated perception. The crisis of the Spanish state is by all means unresolved and whatever relative political stability there was before the pandemic was only haphazard at best. In any case, unrest is likely to resurface with the post-Covid economic crisis
Podemos will now have to negotiate the contradiction of governing a massive crisis as a junior partner of its main electoral rival. It will also have to balance its efforts to restabilise the state while remaining a radical critic of it
For Monereo, the future requires not just rebuilding the party, but building a new organisation altogether, presumably in the form of a looser coalition capable of bringing together all the bits of the left that have grown disillusioned with the Podemos project over time
As Monereo puts it, in the struggle for hegemony, Podemos right now needs 'more Togliatti and less Laclau'
